


In This Together Now

by ohmytheon



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 18:23:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2742479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmytheon/pseuds/ohmytheon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four years later, Sansa Stark and Tyrion Lannister think about how their pasts has brought them together again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In This Together Now

“How long has it been?”

“It must be…four years now.”

“Four years?” A blow of air that displayed amazement. “You have grown into more beautiful of a lady than anyone could have imagined, Lady Stark, and much more powerful as well.”

Sansa could not help but smile at that. “I see you still enjoy flirting with women.”

“Who would I be if I did not?”

When Sansa looked at the man standing before her, she did not see the monster that she had seen all those ages ago. It felt like another lifetime when they had been standing in this same hall. She was still taller than him, as she always would be, but he did not seem so nearly bogged down by everything and everyone around him anymore. In fact, he looked strangely taller to her, though she knew he was not and never would be. She had been a child the last time they had seen each other; she was a woman grown now. No longer was she powerless and haunted by feelings of weakness. She had armies at her command, men willing to die for her, and a North to rule again.

“Strange that we must find ourselves here again though,” Tyrion Lannister mused as he gazed at the sept, his green and black eyes distant.

Sansa nodded her head. She wondered if he was here or if his mind was back in the Free Cities again. Though neither one of them had had the chance to properly speak to one another yet, she’d heard of his part in this tale. While she had taken back the North, he had helped take back the Westerlands. For his cunning, Queen Danaerys had granted him Casterly Rock, just as he’d always wanted and had rightfully deserved. She remembered how he had been denied what was his by rights and how they had married him off to her so that Winterfell would be his through her. He hadn’t wanted Winterfell though. She hadn’t wanted it either, but it was hers now. It was in Stark hands again and that was all that mattered.

“Do you think the Queen will keep these gods?” Sansa asked curiously.

Tyrion shrugged his shoulders. “She worships dragons, not the Seven, but it matters naught to me. None of them ever did me any good regardless.”

Sansa bit her lip, raising her eyes back to the statues before them. She had spent so much of her time as a child in the sept. She’d lit so many candles, whispered so many dreams, offered so many hopes… But she was a woman of the North now and though she had prayed to these gods on a daily basis, even they seemed just as foreign to her now as they did Tyrion. It had only been the godswood where she had been safe – where she had felt safe, at least. It was only her home where she felt whole again. She wondered if Casterly Rock made Tyrion feel whole, if it felt like home, or if his family’s ghosts haunted him because of his betrayal.

“So what brings you to King’s Landing?” Tyrion looked up at her. She could see the questions and dark thoughts in his eyes, even if he was trying to be light and amiable. The last time she had come from Winterfell to King’s Landing, she had lost her father, her sister, and nearly her own life. She had most certainly lost her innocence here as well.

“Paying fealty to the Queen,” Sansa answered, though there was more to it than that. She wanted to see this Dragon Queen for herself. She had retaken the North before this Targaryen woman had come about, but Sansa knew that she did not want another war. She was not Robb. Queen in the North she might be, but she did not need the title to feel its power. “Truth be told, I did not want to come back here, but the Warden of the North has her duties.”

“Warden of the North, hm?” He quirked an eyebrow up at that. “I’ve heard you called things other than that.”

“Now is the time of peace, not of war,” Sansa replied coolly.

Tyrion seemed to warm slightly at that. “You have always been a woman of peace. It is difficult to be that in a time of war.”

“It is difficult for everyone in a time of war,” Sansa pointed out. She tilted her head, looking at him carefully, the scar that crossed his face that had scared her as a child, the half-missing nose that she’d thought would give her nightmares, his different colored eyes that had seemed so monstrous years ago but drew her attention now. _This war had not been kind to him either, nor the people of this city_. “And you, my lord? What has dragged you from the safety of your Rock back to this wretched place?”

Tyrion looked away from her quickly, something she thought was strange. It reminded her of how he would look away from her so suddenly when they had been married to one another, she a child and he a man. It had been out of shame, she knew now, shame for wanting her, shame for putting her in a terrible position, shame for having had had a hand in her misery. But what did it mean now? She watched his lips quirk about, from a half-smile to a frown and then to nothing. “My brother’s execution,” he answered in a blank voice.

Sansa bit her lip, trying to think of something to say and miserably failing. Of course Jaime Lannister would be executed. He had killed the Queen’s father after all, Aerys Targaryen. No matter if the man had been out of his mind, he had been king and Ser Jaime had been charged with keeping the king safe with his life. Instead, he’d repaid the debt of being rewarded a white cloak with a sword to the back. And now that he was stripped of his sullied cloak, his position, his title, and everything else, he would be beheaded as well, to rest alongside his twin and lover and children. He had nearly killed her father, Sansa distantly recalled, and had also helped wage war against Robb. The last time she had seen the Kingslayer though, he had been a shell of his former self, missing a hand and something else, something she had not been able to place.

“I am sorry, my lord,” she finally settled on saying.

Tyrion looked up at her, a humorless smile on his face. “You do not have to lie or hide behind courtesies anymore, Lady Sansa,” he told her. “You are safe now. No one would dare harm you, lest they want to be eaten alive by dragons.”

“No, I _am_ sorry, truly,” Sansa insisted, stepping closer to him. A frown found its way onto her face, a tired and sad frown that made her look and feel more like a child than ever before. She was only ten and seven, but there were days when she ten fifty years-old and other days when she felt only ten and one again. “I cannot say that I know how yours and your brother’s relationship was like or is like now, but I remember when there were days when I thought that I wanted to kill Arya. But when I thought her dead, when I thought I had lost her for good, along with all my family… I knew that I loved her more than anything. I thought nothing could make me happier again than when Winterfell was retaken – until Arya showed up at the gates.”

Sansa watched carefully as an array of mixed emotions seemed to flit through Tyrion’s mismatched eyes. She could tell that he was trying to hide his thoughts and feelings as best as he could. _We still wear masks,_ she realized; _we are still afraid._ Even she did. She wore the mask of the North, in order to show these Southerners what winter truly felt like. And Tyrion – well, for all his deformities, for all the things he’d done, he wore his father’s mask now, the mask of the man he had killed, in order to rule to Westerlands and the Rock. He could not allow people to see him feeling for his condemned brother; he could not allow people to see that he hurt and bled like the rest of them. Not when he was a monster that people still whispered about.

“We did not speak to each other on the best of terms the last time I saw him,” Tyrion admitted quietly. “I said… I did… many awful things that I shouldn’t have. I didn’t want to come see this at all, but I…I owe him that much. Jaime is my brother; he loved me more than I deserved when no one else would; and I repaid him with death. I should be there for him in the end.”

“I will go with you,” Sansa suddenly decided.

Tyrion looked up at her. “My lady, you do not–”

“No, I do not have to come,” Sansa interrupted, “but I will and I want to.” She looked him in the eyes, sure that very few people did so. “I know what it is like to see someone you love die in front of you. No one should be alone for that.”

Not like she had been on the day her lord father had been beheaded. There were nights when she forgot about that – when it was like it had never happened – but then she would wake up and realize she was sleeping in the bedroom her parents had once slept in. She would sit up and see what her parents had seen and know that they were gone and she remained in their stead. She would hear Arya prowling the castle restlessly and wonder what she could do to soothe the wildness in her sister and know that it was an impossible task. It had been for their parents and it would be for her. Arya had also seen their father’s murder. Had they been together, perhaps things might have turned out differently, but both of them had been alone and Sansa did not wish that on anyone.

“Besides,” Sansa added in a lighter tone, “a wife should be at her husband’s side in times of need.”

Tyrion laughed, despite the dark cloud that hung over him. “Our mock of a marriage was never set aside, was it?”

“No,” Sansa said, shaking her head, “it wasn’t. In between hiding in the Vale and retaking the North, I simply hadn’t the time; and I suppose you did not either, what with all your travels and helping the Dragon Queen conquer Westeros.”

“We should get on that then,” Tyrion sighed, scratching at his face. “I’m sure there’s some handsome knight or lord you want to marry. Ten and seven and still with your maidenhead, the Seven save you.” He looked up at her and smiled, and it was a smile filled with true warmth this time. She worried he might be bitter about things, but perhaps he had finally come to terms with himself. He would never be the knight that girls dreamed about, but she knew that he had more heart than many, despite the things he had done and words that he’d said. “You are still a maid, aren’t you?”

“But of course, pure as snow,” Sansa replied with a laugh. He laughed again as well. It felt good to laugh. She knew that it was only a matter of time before the laughter and smiles were sucked out of them and they would be stuck with their duties again, but for now, she didn’t want to think about it and she did not want him wallowing in the cloud of his brother’s impending death. He would be the last of his family; and she knew what that felt like. It was a feeling that weighed over your head like a dark storm, never truly fading away. “If you do not mind, my lord, perhaps… once the marriage is set aside – and I do thank you for that, I truly do, I know I never did, but I… Well, it would be nice to get to know you better, I think.” Tyrion cocked his head, giving her a strange look. Most people would stop at that or leave from embarrassment, but Sansa was not most people. “I was married to you and shared your bed, after all, but I was so scared and miserable that I never took the chance to actually know you or talk to you. Jon says you helped him in a time of need and perhaps…had I been open to your kindness…”

“My Lady Sansa,” Tyrion told her, “I would be honoured.”

Sansa smiled gently at that. “We seem to be doing things backwards, my lord. Marriage, leaving one another, and then getting to know one another. Oh, how the people at court will talk.”

“Let them talk,” Tyrion said with a shrug of his shoulders. “I’m tired of playing that game anyways.”

“Oh, so am I,” Sansa agreed. “Once I leave here, I’ll be free again – free to do whatever I want, including conversing with my ex-husband.” She reached out and took his hand, squeezing it in hers. She could tell that he was still hurting and that his thoughts were still in darker places. She’d learned at an early age to see the truth in people’s eyes. “Come, let us go see the Queen together. It will make things easier for the both of us if we’re not alone.”

“Yes,” he said distantly, but looking her in the eyes, “not alone.”


End file.
